


The case of the lost Watson

by Escritora2Aliasfox



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-11-08 06:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escritora2Aliasfox/pseuds/Escritora2Aliasfox
Summary: It was that or "The case of the missing doctor" or "The case of the banished blogger"I hope you like it. I suggest you read at least up to the second chapter before you start sending me worying notes.(IN EDITING PROCESS)





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock had left a disembodied hand on the fridge.  
That was not odd… coming from him, but he had left it right above John’s salad.  
And it had no wrapping, nor a plate… not even a paper sheet.

“I refuse to apologize for a salad!” Was last thing Sherlock had said, before starting to play the violin, rather aggressively. 

John grumped something and went for a walk.

That was last time Sherlock saw him.

Hours later, when he started noticing his absence, Sherlock realized he had been distracted up to ungodly hours in the night…  
And John was still not home.

He left him a text, and waited, and distracted himself looking for possible cases on the internet, and checked the phone…  
And later on he woke up in the couch, were he had not intended to fall asleep.  
The doctor was still not home.

Sherlock checked the phone again, and seeing the absence of texts he went for the closest possibilities:  
Mrs. Hudson hadn’t seen him. Neither Lestrade.  
Sherlock knew it was highly unlikely that he could be with his sister or any of his exes, so he checked his blog before his next move.

No new entrys. 

So he texted Mycroft, feeling quite betrayed for having to recur to him.  
Of course, instead of texting, he called back. 

“Hello…”  
“Were is John?”  
“I beg you pardon?”  
“Not in the mood for games. Where is he?”

On the other end of the line, Mycroft took a deep breath.

“Sherlock, you can not automatically involve me. There is a high chance that the poor doctor finally lost his patience”

Sherlock made a face to the thin air and growled.

“I may be annoying but you, fat prick have cameras all around my street. You tell me where’s John or I will tell Mommy”

Mycroft sighed through his nose with closed eyes before he checked the data he had already requested, on the tablet.

“Seems like the doctor left your place at 7PM yesterday… in a cab… and went south”  
“South where?”  
“…”  
“MYCROFT”  
“I…don’t know. …The cab went off radius”  
“What do you mean out of radius? Mycroft!”  
“…oh. Oh god”  
“What”  
“The plate has been checked… It was stolen yesterday”

Sherlock panicked.

He took another cab, while texting Lestrade. The inspector wasted no time on leaving what he was doing to follow him to the exact place were the stolen cab had been found.  
It was not far from the city, but already looked like the middle of nowhere, green field as far as the sight could reach.

Sherlock followed a close by path, (the closest variation of scenery) and, up not too far, there was an abandoned building.

Lestrade walked close behind when he walked into the place… and froze, for a moment.

In the middle of the room, just a few meters over there, there was something large lying on the floor.  
“Shit” Murmured Lestrade before Sherlock run up to it…

Sherlock stood tall, and stumbled. Just centimeters from his shoes lay the lifeless body of John Watson.  
There was no doubt. No other way to name it.  
It was him. Still, paler than ever. Same clothes he left with, a large pool of half dried blood spilled from what seemed like a shot to his chest.

Sherlock fell to his knees, hands right to his neck… cold, stiff flesh and no breathing, nor heartbeat.  
There was nothing he could do. The time of death had been probably hours ago. And even if he solved this murder…  
John was dead.

He felt numb, like in a dream, when you try but can not run nor scream.

After a while looking at John’s pale, still face, he looked around, not really taking any details in.

Lestrade had barely managed to walk in, phone in hand, but not talking, his other hand to his mouth.

Mrs. Hudson didn’t bother him when he rushed to lock himself in and did not come out. She found out thanks to Lestrade, who was having his own hard time.  
Mere minutes later, Mycroft showed up.  
Sherlock refused to answer the door, so he just came in.

…and got hit with a book on his face.  
Sherlock was trembling by the library, nearly all its content on the floor.  
The rest of the flat was more of a mess than usual, too… but Mycroft’s eyes went directly to the box of syringes in the coffee table.

“Sherlock…”  
“SHUT UP!!”

Mycroft flinched. Sherlock kept shaking. He had been clean for a long while now.  
How much had he taken?

“You…”

He looked around, and after a moment of considering, grasped the coffee table and smashed it violently against the floor, and then threw it away.

“Sherlock stop!”  
“YOU WERE WATCHING!”

Sherlock pointed at him in rage, accusingly. Mycroft took a moment to get his point.

“You saw it and said nothing”  
“Sherlock, I…”  
“What good are you if you… you watch, but don’t help? How may you PROTECT me and let him die!?”  
“Sherlock, I did not…!”  
“Shut up!”

Sherlock smashed something else. There had been plates and glasses somewhere.

“Get out!!” He threw a glass Mycroft’s way. It crashed on he wall and showered him in shards. 

“LEAVE ME ALONE”

Mycroft, honestly shocked, closed the door.  
What could he do? Was it really his fault? Was there anything he could have done? With all the cameras and micros and… and Sherlock? What could he do with him?

It had taken a whole lot to deal with an addict, difficult brother just to have a decent relationship with him, let alone get him clean. Now he was back in there…  
Plus, the loss of Dr. Watson.

He shook this thoughts away, for later. Had to think fast. Had to be strong. Got to get the naloxone... And somehow give it to Sherlock

Sherlock tried to remember the last thing he had said to John. It was irrelevant, but somehow it was important, and… No.  
It could not be, that last thing he had said was

“I refuse to apologize for a salad”


	2. Chapter 2

Jonhn’s burial would be three days later.  
Lestrade made sure to take some more days off, after he had officially identified the body.  
Molly didn’t need to. She was quite used to death, it was not the first time she worked with the corpse of a known person of hers… but it was still harsh.

She didn’t know if she should have expected Sherlock to be there.  
Of course he would want to! It's just that… she had been told of his drastic reaction (he didn't even make it back to the crime scene before they removed the body) and, being already an impresive one, what to expect when he was on drugs?

Sherlock stood by the door, eyes locked on the body covered by a sheet across the room. Molly didn’t know what to say. She barely managed to make a pitiful attempt at stopping him when he walked straight to the table.

“Sherlock… there’s no need for this, it’s been identified already…”

But he owned this place. More than ever, like it was his house. In a swift motion, he uncovered John’s head.

Sherlock stared at John’s inmovil face, for a bit too long, without noticing.  
Molly snapped him out of it gently  
“…Sherlock?”

He took another moment “What do you have?”  
“Am… gunshot, front, up close…”  
“What else?”  
“…nothing, really… the gun was a 9 millimeters, we think it was not registered…”  
“Yeah, but what else? Drugs?”  
“No”  
“Defense evidence…?”  
“…Not really”  
“What do you mean not really? You think he would not fight back!?”

She stood a moment in shock at Sherlock snapping at her. He just rolled his eyes and uncovered a bit more in order to access John’s hand.

“He was not drudged, nor did he try to defend himself. Maybe he was talking to the aggressor, thinking he could… maybe the shot was accidental…”  
“None of this was accidental… um?”

Sherlock held John’s hand on his, cold, non responsive… in search for possible clues of shelf defense attempt… and found something that called his attention even further.

He walked all around the table and checked the other hand.  
“Something’s missing”  
“Uh?”  
“Molly. Did you make him up? Did it have bruises that dissipated?”  
“What? No”  
“He had bruises here” Sherlock shook the hand like it was an obvious clue  
“On his knuckles, he punched a wall and had been complaining for a week”  
“They probably healed before he was taken…”  
“No, no, he skinned them. He still compulsively caressed them when he was uncomfortable, before he left…”  
“Sherlock, there’s nothing there. You are…”

Sherlock stared at her, expecting her accusation.

“…exaggerating”

Sherlock took a deep breath and contemplated the body in front… wait.  
He breathed again.  
He held John’s hand against his mouth and breathed deeply throug his nose 

“Sherlock?”

He smelt a bit down his forearm too, and then moved on to his head:  
He bent over the table and sniffed deeply John’s face. His mouth, the side of his head…  
He went so close that his nose touched John’s hair.

He then stood tall, confusion all over his face.

Tobaco and alchool.

“What?”  
“He didn’t drink. He was very careful to drink not much given his dislike of his sister’s addiction. And he did not smoke. Did you clean the body? How did you do it? Why does it smell of…” sniff “Tobaco and alcohol”  
“Maybe he… drank something before he died?”  
“No, he left our place and got on that cab and they took him away and killed him. No time for drinking. And the smoke?”  
“The murderer was smoking in the cab? Maybe that’s a clue. We’re looking for a man who smokes…”

Sherlock was thinking. “I have to go back to the crime scene, and the stolen cab”  
But before he left, he went back to John’s hand.  
Held it. Looked closely on it. Caressed his knuckles.  
There was an idea on his head.

“Did you check his war scar?”  
“Old gunshot in the shoulder. Yes”  
“Is it there”  
“Of course it is there. What do you mean?”  
“The bruise on his knuckles is gone. How could it be gone? It can not be gone”  
“Sherlock. Calm down”  
“Molly, look!”  
“Look at his face, Sherlock!”

A second of silence

“John is, dead. And you are in denial. I’m sorry”  
‘and on drugs’ she wanted to add. She didn’t, but Sherlock noticed.

He did look at John’s face. It was him. No possible way out. Sherlock let go of his hand, what somehow took him a large effort, thou not as much as to walk away.

He needed a fix.

He got home with his hyperactive brain on hiatus: it was like one of those days traffic collapsed roads.

John was dead and he needed a fix and John was dead and he had to know what happened because there was smoke and alcohol but why and the knuckles and his brother and he needed a fix and he had to fix this already but even if he did john was dead…

Plus, the burial.  
Had someone called John’s sister? Someone probably should. Did John’s parents already know? And Rosie…

Sherlocks brain threatened to colapse around that issue: Rosie.  
John’s baby. The baby he had with Mary.  
What would be of her?

He needed a fix.  
Getting home, he was tackled by Mrs. Hudson. He liked her, but he was annoyed.  
He knew it was not her, It was the entire world, the sounds of the street, the light dropping from the sun on him and the mere presence of humanity

And above it all, John’s absence.  
It wasn’t him not being there. It was him not being, period.  
But annoying was not the proper world: it was upsetting, terrifying, disgusting, unnerving, infuriating…

No. Annoying was that Mrs. Hudson told him he had clients waiting for him.

“Mrs. Hudson please, sue them and tell anyone who comes by I’m not taking any case”  
“Not even Dr. Watson’s…?”  
“I!!” He snapped at the face of the girl, who had walked up to him, a young man behind her. “…Will not be making any declarations, specially to a pair of rookie reporters who came in here lying to my land lady. OUT”

The girl had lost the trail of words, but she still got a mic from her purse bag and raised it to Sherlock’s face.

“I take it you must be so upset by the…tragic death of your blogger, Mr. Holmes…”

She spoke too fast to be honest in any way. It didn’t help that, behind her, the boy had sticked out his large phone, and was flashing at him at the moment.

Sherlock didn’t say a word. He walked up to him and snatched it right off its owner’s hands. The paparazzi tried to complain, but Sherlock was taller. And claimed to have it confiscated.

“Please, the poor man has had enough of…” Mrs. Hudson tried to put peace, but the girl reporter ignored her abruptly.  
“Mr. Holmes, do you have any idea of who could’ve done this? An old enemy of yours, maybe…?”

Sherlock snarled and went for the gun.  
It was somewhere in the caos of the flat. He had been trying to locate it since he was flashed by the bastard with the phone.  
He pointed it up to the face of the young man, managing a second of stiff peace. Then, with a shift motion, used it to push him unceremoniously towards the door, where the girl still made a last attempt at recording something.

“Mrs. Hudson, as Mr. Holmes landlady, would you like to giv…”

Sherlock shut the door on her face, for a second they could still hear the sentence being ended on the other side.

On this side of the door, however, there was silence.

“Oh, Sherlock… I’m terribly sorry. I though maybe a little case…”  
“I need to concentrate all my resources on one case now, Mrs. Hudson”  
Sherlock was already halfway trough the stairs  
“Of course. I will tell anyone else that you don’t…”

She was interrupted by another door shutting aggressively.  
“Oh, my…”

Sherlock didn’t really think twice (wich was unlike him) on taking a shot.

He trashed around the place, tried to concentrate. Made a proto-schelude for his next course of action regarding the events… and then tried to razonate about John’s case.  
The case of John’s death.  
The fact that he was gone.  
Dead. Killed. Like so many others he had enjoyed solving.

This was already a fact, from yesterday. Why was he still wondering about it?  
He tried to solve it given what he knew.

John argued with him, he left home. Got a Cab. The driver knew him (or Sherlock, or worked for someone) and was smoking and… no. It didn’t smell like that. or yes?  
John smelled like… and did not fight. But had marks on his knuckles, but not anymore…

He failed. He woke up on the floor, very disoriented, unsettling taste on his mouth, cold, a slept arm trapped under his chest and a pain of his neck from the sleeping pose.

He tried to get up. Failed (again) and rolled for a bit, screwing his eyes shut.  
(Damn, too much light. Isn’t this London?) when a sudden sound added to his nuisances.

It was a phone ringing. His phone. He preferred texting, but given his state he just crawled a bit and palmed the floor for it.

“Mr. Holmes?”  
“Mmm yeah”  
“Good morning. My name is Richard Doyle. Would you be interested in an interview to…”  
“….Fuck off!” He managed to growl. How did they get his phone? Wait, was it morning already?  
“Wait… Mr… but, what about the baby?!”

That was it. With a shriek of rage, Sherlock threw the phone hard and far away.  
It was his subconscious, always working mind, or just coincidence, that it went through the glass of the window, and into the street.


	3. Chapter 3

“I am not going to use my contacts to take an infant from her family, so that you can have a new toy!”  
“She is no toy! She’s Jon’s daughter and I have to make sure she is fine”  
“She will be fine, just like any other kid wherever she belongs now…”  
“No. No, listen I want her. I want to take care of her. I will do it”  
“You have never cared for kids! You didn’t even care for this one before…”  
“Yes I did! John and Mary shared their life together with me. They would pass out in exaustion in my couch, and I was left alone to take care of the baby… and we did fine! Wonderfull, even. I can do it”  
“No, you can’t. You have no right over her”  
“Oh, please, the other option is an alchoolic woman John hated!”  
“And you are in drugs! You are not who to claim her”

Sherlock took a deep breath.

“Mycroft. Brother. You know John helped me. She could help me. We could take care of one another. I… need her”  
“Maybe. But, does she need you?”  
“Before she was born, I made a vow to protect the three of them. I am responsible…”  
“Yes, becouse you did fine with the other two!”

Sherlock stood still. Mycroft was really sorry for this, but he had to press further.

“If you really cared for that kid, you would yearn for the best for her, and not…”

Sherlock shut the door with a bang that made the whole wall tremble.  
He needed a fix.

Perhaps Mycroft was right. He did care for the kid. He had bonded with her, but the main reason he wanted her was she was John’s.  
And it was just a baby. She had no practical conexion to John. She would never know him…

Rosie would never meet her dad, John.  
Sherlock needed a fix.

Wasn’t he, John’s best friend, and co-worker, and flatmate, the best option to raise Rosie with his memory? …Or did the poor kid deserve to start a brad new life far away from this tragedy, and sherlock, and all the danger that aparently surrounded him?

He couldn’t think. He needed a fix.

…But what would be of her? Would they really give her to Harry?  
That couldn’t be!

Sherlock needed a fix.  
He took off hi shoe, peeled off the template, and lifted the piece of plastic there, under wich, there was a tiny bag of white powder.  
Or, well, magic powder, you know.

He breathed it in, deeply, and and his mind felt blank and nice for a few seconds…  
Then, thoughts started racing again, more fluent than usual, as they did with the influence of the drug. He needed this.  
His life was colapsed lately.

He even had a piece of mind to feel the irony of consuming this right in front of Mycroft’s door, after he had been denied… what?  
Oh, right. The kid.

Sherlock organized his concerns in that moment:

1- John was dead. Fuck the world, and the kid and all the powder in existance…  
2- Finding what had happened to John, and the responsible one.  
3- Taking care of the kid

Wait, was that ok? Was it more urgent to avenge John’s death and punish the responsible or to make sure the baby would grow properly?

He stood in the spot. And he could visualize clear as day, John Watson standing next to him… giving him one of his looks.  
That one. The ‘I can’t believe you are considering this, and I’m waiting for you to make a counclusion I will react to quite amusingly no mater wich one is it’

He wondered if this is how John kept seeing Mary after her death, and he ignored the ghost of a memory caused by his high… and kept thinking of rational, propper things.

‘Let’s put Rosie and the murder at the same level of concern, just not to offend John’ he thoug. You know, propperly.

He did this while walking down stairs and texting Dimmock, who was in charge during Lestrade’s little vacations.  
Dimmock was dealing… well with Sherlock’s behaibour, as he respected him for his miraculous capacities…  
That is, for now. It was just a matter of time ‘till he would run out of patience… or grow used to it like Lestrade.

'Do you have anything jet?’  
‘You are not texting back. Got nothing?’  
‘Do your damn job’

And while doing so he had to ignore an abalanch of texts and missed calls from reporters who wanted to question him and fans who offered themselves for taking John’s bacant as his blogger.  
RIDICULOUS

Sherlock barely spent any time at home during the days before the burial. He spent this time continously runing back and forth to the crime scene, and the place where the cab was kept and the mourge, collecting possible pieces of information, asking questions and blaming the whole of humanity for being useless and pitifull.

Maybe that was just the world, lately.

Soon, there came a moment when his body and his brain decided they had had enough chemicals and excercise and not enough rest, and he collapsed.

The effect of the cocaine started washing off and he had no more left for the trip.  
He started filling the downfall of his high… and his brilliant mind collapsed little by little, like a rollercoaster getting to the higest part of the trip and slowing painfully before a quick fall.  
Sherlock panicked a little bit and he called a cab.

On his mind,the thougs regarding the baby, wich had been, like it or not on a second plane broke throu the many little pieces of the puzzle wich had been the case, making a mess, and the ever present, omnipotent feeling of John being dead took over all the space with a cocky smile.

Sherlock resisted, but that effort left his capacity of comunication with the real world haning from a tender piece of wet paper.

In the back seat of the cab, he managed his aching head, reduced to a trembling tight ball in a corner, and the driver asked him if he was allright.  
But Sherlock knew what he meant: he said it in a comical tone and he was smirking. He had killed John!

This was what John had been like before dying right? The killer got him now just to laught at him.

“Did… you drug… him?”  
“What?”  
“John… what …you did to …him?”  
“Pal, you sure you don’t wanna go to the hospital?”  
“No… take me where’s John!!”  
“Woa, hey man, we are almost there just hold on!”  
“You drugged him right? …poison.. him… what…?”

But John had not been poisoned. There were no results of poison in the tests, and he had been smoking… no. John didn’t smoke. He had skinned his knucles but he didn’t smoke, and the knuckles were no longer skined and he smelt like… the baby. Got to protect Rosie. Poor little thing, so small, so simple, and yet left without its mother and father. She was just a meaningless mind, she would not remember what was happening… but right now she must feel so lost, and so lonely, and scared, and hurt.

Sherlock was not made of stone, as much as he had evolved into apearing so. He didn’t know it, but he wanted to run, and break into werever the baby was, and wrap her tight into his coat, against his chest, and run and run and shield her from the danger that was there and take her back to her dad… John.

He wanted that. He wanted to be with John and tell him what a crazy week it wad been. And how sorry he was for the stupid salad…

And John would shout at him like wenever he lost his patience, and tell him to “get me out of here you idiot so I can type in my sodding stupid blog and give me my baby!” and sherlock would try, but could not see John. John was gone and even if he was not, Sherlock did not have the baby, and he was alone.  
And he was back in the back of the cab were John had died. And the murderer drived the cab laughting at him and Sherlock argued to be taken where John was but the driver would not.

Then, out of nowere, Mrs. Hudson was there. She said some reasuring words he did not understand, and Sherlock just let her guide him throu his nightmares and pay the poor driver.

Sherlock woke up slowly, painfully, in a mess of a place that once had been his room.  
Or was it the living room? It was a mess. Had been since… oh well.

His body ached for food and water, but his brain and nervious sistem claimed chemical substances. He held it all down in an atempt to keep it together. He did believe the best was to eat something… but he doubted his stomach could keep it down.

He took his sweet time to, slowly, get up and onto his feet, and then took a shower, carefully, not to die in the atempt.  
He then made it to the kitchen. His experiments were abandoned and the mess of the table even more of a mess now.

And Mrs Hudson was there.  
She had tea, and coffee, and pasteries… and was dressed in an elegan black dress.

Sherlock screwed his eyes shut. Mrs Hudson waited for him to… well, seem ready.

“Sherlock. Do you think you will be in state for… today?”  
“Today? Why? What’s up today?”

She made a pitiful gesture, and fidgeted with a hadekerchief in her hands.

“Well, today’s ...his funeral, dear”

Sherlock’s head spinned faster, and he could not shalow down her words.  
Was it today? How long had been since John’s… death? What had he done in this days?  
Had he really spent them high? Wait, that was not usually a problem: he could manage a case better when he was high. Why hadn’t he figured it out jet!?

…Oh right. Lestrade was on vacations, for John’s funeral, and John couldn’t help him, cause he was dead, and it didn’t really matter how hard he worked on solving it, this was still hapening.

He wanted to shut the entire world down like it was a light and walk out the room, close the door, and forget it all, but instead he shook his head and muttered

“Give me a few minutes”

Mrs Hudson noded and took the handchief to somewere in her face, before walking out.

“Of course, dear”


	4. Chapter 4

Imagine that a pair of birds nested near your window and you got to see them come and go as the chicks grow. Or that a mama cat had a litter under your house, and you got to feed them and see the cute kittens come and go and play…

Now this is more or less how Mrs. Hudson had felt when Sherlock, excentric and messy, like a big child had started living with her. And when John had moved in.

It had been fascinating and adorable, seeing this two boys fitting so well together and going and coming and … 

Well, they were, of course, not a pair of cats, or a couple of birds. They were people.  
Maybe it would be a bit too much saying they were like the sons she never had.  
…They were like the nephews she never had, see? She did care for them a lot.  
She was one of the only persons who got to share her life with Sherlock Holmes, and knew that, actually, thou he may not look like it, thou he may rarely express them, he had feelings.

It was so odd how she had been weeping at Sherlock’s burial, and Mary’s, and now she got to do the same at John’s. With Sherlock.  
She knew, oh, she knew well, how broken the boy was.

Sherlock was so still, eyes fixed on the coffin. His mind feeling numb with panic.  
Kind of like when you are drowning, or falling… your thougs go so fast, or so slow, they colapse. Sherlock’s brilliant brain was colapsed.

They had to give him a gentle push so that he would notice that it all was about to end, and it was his time to give a speech, and throw a handful of sand in there.  
He felt cold. Not in terms of heat, but sensation.

He found himself facing friends and beloved ones of John, and he had to talk to them of what had happen. He tried to hide the way he trembled.  
Whas he feeling guilt, or just needed a fix? He tried to recober and think of a few words to say…

“I… am not good giving speeches” His mouth was suddenly dry.

There was Mrs. Hudson, of course, and Mike, who seemed to feel a pang of regret for something… and Little Rosie, on someone’s arms… Lestrad, and even Sally, and John’s sister, who had been late, and looked more or less like him.

You know, adicts.

“…When john asked me to give a speech on his wedding, I was…well, quite lost. I had no idea how to do it and even thou I tried for days I still messed it up somehow…  
But to speak on his funeral…” 

He barely noticed he stopped talking there for a moment. 

“…The… I, really…” Sherlock turned slightly, facing the coffin. And spoke openly, like in a dream, like John could hear him.

“John, I am terribly sorry for that time I made you believe I was dead, for now I am learning what a monstruosity it was. I am sorry. …And I wish… I could say it to your… face…”

He felt like he had not much air left, and he looked at the faces in front of him… but it was just a second. He could not hold much longer and he just scatered between the others, gibing an end to his speech.

It had been quite emotional, and many were now trying to stay decent while whiping away their tears.

Sherlock went throu the rest of the ceremony like an automat, and was going to leave without another word… but he saw Rosie.

He wanted to be closer to her. He really did. No idea why. Maybe it was the fact that she reminded him of a happier time in his life? Or the fact that she was John’s and he was the only one who could really tell her of him…?

He walked towards the baby, and the woman who was holding her.  
It was an old woman. Mrs. Watson, aparently. Widow. Unconfortable with the baby, but with a firm wrip. She didn’t think she should be doing this, but was determined to take care of her gradchild…

“Mrs. Watson?” She looked at him. She recogniced him from the newspapers or tv, and John’s stories, but still, Sherlock behaved. If not, he wouldn’t get to hold Rosie.

“…may I, please?” he gestured towards the baby, and the little girl did something quite out of place: She smiled at him.  
Of course she couldn’t possibly know what was happening… but did she actually remember him?

Rosie’s grandmother saw this and nodded, passing the child to him. And Sherlock truly had to readjust his balance.

“Oh. My…” he looked at the little one “You do grow fast don’t you?”

She certainly had. After Molly’s death, John had fallen back into depression, and he hadn’t been capable of taking care of a child, so he had given her up temporaly.  
After geting over his problem with Sherlock, he was still readjusting to life and planing how to fit a child into their routine… when everything had happened. 

All in all, Rosie had been away for a few moths… and infants grow really fast. She was now close to one year old, with longer, blonde locks and considerably larger...  
Sherlock wondered how much awake and capable she was now. It would be interesting (perhaps even fun!) to make a couple of tests with her... And, did she really remembered him or he just seemed familiar to her, and so, she liked his face, and the sound of his voice.  
He had been there from the moment she had been born. Earlier, even. During the pregnacy… and babies colect sounds while in the womb, so they can recognice familiar voices after birdth…

Actually, he had been like her third parent, and was the only one left…  
This realisation was too much, too sudden, and Shelock needed to breathe.

The baby beamed at him and took a hand out of her own mouth to try and touch his face, and pull at his hair.  
Sherlock didn’t mind. He kissed the little hand and then held her closer. Breathed deeply throu his nose.

She didn’t smell like she used to… but she smelled like a baby.  
Wait. The smell… it was important somehow.  
She didn’t smell like John anymore… but that was only logical, why was it so upsetting? John himself didn’t smell anymore like…  
Crap.

He kissed her again and then handed her back to her grandmother.

“Thank you” he said. And he wanted to add something but didn’t know what. So he just walked away.  
On his way he walked past Harry. She had been watching and there was a silent discussion there: who would keep Rosie?

He needed a fix. He didn’t even make it to the cab: Just hid behind a tree and… and oh shit there was a papparazzi already hiding there.

“What are you doing?” the papparazzi asked.  
“Uh… I came to tell you to leave as all rest in peace you bloddy stalker!”  
“Like Mr. Watson? Those were very sweet words sir, would you like to ad…”  
“Of for fuck’s sake!”

Sherlock walked off, nearly run to the cab, being chased by the other making annoying questions. When he finally sat inside, he was flashed by the cameras. There were more paparazzis now. He didn't really care that much for the photos. This would just add to all the others he kept finding everyday, everywhere, specially since John had died, with quotes like "Detective too depressed to go back to work" Or "Detective's blogger vacant not up... why" and stupid theories as for why John had been killed...

“Drive!!” He shouted, and he must have startled the driver becouse he made a sharp turn, nearly scratching the car parked in front.

Sherlock couldn’t take it anymore. He crouched behind driver’s seat and pulled out a bit of cocaine. It was just a bit but he needed it like water on the desert. He even wished it was a syngerine…

“Yo allright in there, sur?”  
“Uh… yes!” he snifed a bit “Just… dizzy… don’t stop driving, just get me home… no wait, wait! To the new scotland yards building…”  
“Uh… sure?”

And while doing this, he seriously considered if it was about time to stop all of it, drugs and case alltogether... After all, John wouldn't come bsck, and Rosie... 

Still he texted Lestrade.

‘The burial is over. Get back to work. See you there’

To wich Lestrad responded

‘Not today. Give me a couple days’

Sherlock insisted, but then he only got a ‘fuck off’ answer.  
He wouldn’t waist his trip: he got to the mourge. He coulnd’t see John there anymore… but his brain wanted to try. 

Oh, wait. Molly wasn’t there. She was at the burial too.  
Shit.

So he expent that day at home, high, looking throu possible misteries he didn’t plan to solve becouse he was just distracting his brain from what was really cooking in there.

The day after is when he broke into the mourge showering Molly with his aura of ‘I own this place give me what I want’

…and she did not dare look at his eyes.

“Molly. Molly, eyes here. What do you have?”  
“…I have nothing, Sherlock…”

He looked at her like he had just seen a big animal crouching, staring at him.

“What was that? You must have something left after the body was taken. If you are not telling me what it is then that’s a lie”

She shiged deeply, and Sherlock felt invested.

“What is it. What would you keep from me?”  
“…there… was…”  
“…?”  
“… a, miscalculation with… one of the tests”  
“…what miscalculation? What test?”  
“…the dna one” She said with the tiniest mouth Sherlock had ever seen.

He breathed deeply, backened one step and then forwards, hands claping in front of his mouth, crouching down onto her.

“What do you mean miscalculation? You don’t miscalculate dna, you read it. Did you read it wrong? What could possibly go wrong?”  
“I… had the impression…”

Sherlock tilted his head.

“No. I tested it several times… and it… didn’t work”  
“Meaning…?”  
“It… probably was contaminated… or we got the wrong example. It probably just got exchanged by someone else’s…”

Sherlock nearly jumped “AJA!!” And Molly tilted herself backwards so far she nearly fell.

“It was not his! There must be a… a… trap or something…!”  
“No!” She had to insist in order to interrupt him “No, there was nothing, it was just a stupid swap”  
“But the clues, Molly!”  
“You are high and depressed and mourning and so you see imaginary clues everywere even thou you’ve seen and touched his corpse!”  
“But it didn’t smell…”  
“Get out of my working space! Now!”

And so, tiny Molly strugled to push him out and ignored everything he had to say untill he was, finally, out.

Sherlock’s brain reminded him of how wonderfull, how usefull a dose of cocaine would be now, to celebrate (what?) or just to work better throu the case… but he didn’t really need it. He knew were to go now, and he felt high already.


	5. Chapter 5

“No! Just… no”  
“Don’t… just do it!”  
“Sherlock, no. I can’t do that!”  
“It is needed. It is actually for an investigation in course, you just have to autorice it…”  
“I can not use my contacts to give you a child that is not yours AND take from the grave her father’s body, which was buried just today!” Mycroft breathed deeply “Sherlock. All the press is behind you…”  
“Fuck the press. I haven’t given up on the child jet and!” Sherlock crouched over the table, closer to Mycroft’s face “I have proof that we need that body to take more proof from it. We have no dna, we need…”  
“You were convinced you needed that baby and then you found is for the best to let her go. Just… take a few days to let the burial sink in and… maybe the… substances you’ve been taking to wash off”  
“I am not high! For the first time in a long while, I’ve found a huge clue and a path to follow in this case, if you just gave me his… head”

Mycroft looked at him like he had confessed a murder

“You want John’s skull”  
“No! Well, yes, but for investigation purposes. With the rest of the dna, just the skull won’t do”  
“Sherlock! This conversation went on for too long. My answer is final. No”  
“I refuse to take that as an answer. I need this. It is for my job, for John, and for my sanity! Mycroft… please!” 

He said that last word like he was spiting something rotten.

“Allright” Mycroft made a gesture with his hand, like he was speaking of bushiness

“I will do this for you, but you have to clear your head, and choose one”  
“…one?”  
“The custody of the baby, or John’s corpse. Decide what you really need. Leave the other”

Sherlock stood still, static. A serious, blank expression on his face. Mycroft waited paciently for his answer.

“…I can’t”  
“See. They’r just wimps. You just want them but…”  
“You” Sherlock’s jaw clenched, his words trembled with so much poison

“You can’t just… can’t do this to me!” Mycroft rolled his eyes with a sight.  
“Sherlock…”  
“Make me choose between my family”

Mycroft stared at him. Much shocked now.

“What?”  
“I…” A trembling, deep breath “John, who I care for the most, has been taken from me. Little after Mary, and I am trying to take him back. And Rosie, his daughter, they are taking her from me as we speak, and I can do nothing!  
…My …life, is being torn apart and I try to hold it together, and I come to you for help!  
I don’t do that for wimps! And you…”

Mycroft stood on his seat, like a bushiness man, and didn’t react.  
His brother, on the other side of the desk, trembling, felt the need for something hard to make his emotions easier to deal with… and though he could see John standing next to Mycroft, crossed arms, looking at him with a serious, worried expression.  
This face, was interrupted for the image of a dead face, on a dirty floor pooled with blood, and on a metal table, and and strange smell that was not his, and Sherlock could not deal with it and just walked out with a blam to the door.

He nearly tripped down the stairs, and he didn’t care to reach for the cocaine he had left somewere on his clothes. He needed something more.  
Was this all worth it? Should he forget John like he had never been there and cope with the loneliness? Should he stop investigating alltogether? Shall he let go of Rosie at all or just visit her from time to time?  
He went home for a syngerine.

As he had it on his hand, and directed it to his veins… he had an idea. And it was stupid, but it was worth a try.

His addiction got the better of him,and he still injected himself (only half a dose, must be said) then, he took a cab, and directed it to the closest shop where he could get tools.  
He bought a shovel, and a stone drill, together with working googles, and he… put it in a bag, and went for a coffee, to make some time before nightfall, when the graveyard would be desolate.

Next morning, Mycroft had to send someone to pick him up from jail.  
Sherlock went back to his office, clothes maladjusted and covered in dirt.

“You attacked an officer with a shovel”  
“I did not”  
“Then, why acused of doing so?”  
“The officer tried to take the shovel from me, and I defended myself”  
“Oh my god!”  
“I did not attack him. He was trying to… steal from me”  
“You were using a shovel and a drill to steal John’s body from the graveyard!”  
“What was I supposed to do? Wait, arms crossed for nothing to happen? Drug myself to unconsciousness? I need that dni!”  
“Sherlock!... ah. Look” Mycroft got up and walked to be on eye level with him.

“I will help you with this, but! You will come for diner with us on christmash, and behave!”  
“…Yes.”  
“And I mean every christmash. This is a big… thing.”  
“…Done”  
“As for the child… we will speak of that later”  
“…” Sherlock nodded.  
“… Now, I believe we both have work to do”

Sherlock walked quite fast (the way he always does) out the door and only remembered to say “Thank you Mycroft” While closing it. His brother noticed that he had said it nonetheless. 

Seconds later he received a text.

‘When will the body ready to work on it?’  
‘hours. Wait for the afternoon’

Sherlock texted Lestrade then.

‘back already?’ The answer sounded quite healthy, considering all facts.  
’24 hourse more…’

He then texted the other inspector… whatever his name was and just dismissed him politely

‘Back on the case. New trail. No need to worry, lay off ‘till Lestrade comes tomorrow’

And then, he called a cab. No idea were to go. What to do up to afternoon?  
It ocured to him he may need sleep by now. He had nothing better to do and wanted to be fresh for the investigation…

Sleep would be imposible now. He went for the graveyard.


	6. Chapter 6

As fast as Sherlock steped into the mourge, Molly walked up to him in large, fast, firm steps and slaped him across the face.

He stood, as tall as he was, only mild shock on his face, like he had steped on a snail.  
Molly tried to say something, but she didn’t find words in time, and, (as she was a civiliced creature and would not snarl at him) she slapped him again, hard, with the back of the hand.

“How dare you” She spilled at him with poison on her voice “How dare you not only to come back here, but do it with…it”  
“I have profesional reasons to believe that more investigation must be…”

She gestured as to hit again, and this time Sherlock backed off, but not far enough to get out the door.

“You could do as Lestrade and take a, few days off, if you feel… stressed”

Molly made a hatefull, ironic expression he had never seen on her

“I will not leave my job for your… issues. I will do my job even if you insist on waisting all of our time and I refuse to let you get to me anymore!”

She turned away from him and kept working for the rest of her turn silent, firm, proffesianaly, and without looking at his eyes not even once for the next 24 hours.

Sherlock insisted on participating in order to fasten the process, but he did not work there. The samples had to be sent to somewhere else, where they would be tested propperly (and painfully slowly) before the results would arrive.

At the very least, Sherlock made sure several samples would be taken just to double check… and ordered a dental check. For good measure.

Molly puffed like a horse and rolled her eyes but concentrated on her job, willing to get over with it and have John’s already rotting carcass off her working space.

Soon, Sherlock noticed he had run out of work to do here, and he was just making excuses. He wanted to be there. He was ansious for the results…   
The results that he wanted.

He had a brillian idea, and looked at John’s face.

I was starting to look rather disgusting. His fluids were starting to dry and his flesh was turning flat agains’t his skull bones, eyes sunk deeper into it, skin less and less livid…

He found himself trapped in a kind of brain collapse, thinking again of the last things he said to him and the look of him in the cold, dirty, bloody…

His phone started ringing, and he run away muttering “Make sure to make that dental test. I want it…”

And so he repressed his urge for drugs while strolling to Lestrade’s office.

“I do not believe it!”  
“What?”  
“You… you just… you can’t leave John and the rest of us rest in peace? I was on vacation for this! And the day I come back, that day you…!”  
“What if John is not resting in peace? What if he is somewere, locked away, tormented, and we could be looking for him instead of… mourning?”

Lestrade shook his head, and breathed deeply

“Sherlock. I want to believe you. I really do. I… believe on you, as your work is brilliant… but… I can not… I can’t do this. Is upirior to my forces”  
“Then just eat another donut and forget I am here and what I got on that lab and If turns out John’s alive I will just call you”  
“You don’t understand!” 

Lestrade got up. Sherlock recogniced signs of anger on his expression and body languaje, tough he was obviously restraining himself

“I am already going to expend the next week at the edge of a nerve wreck waiting for my phone to ring and wondering what it means every second that it does not. I am not a cold genious like you, Sherlock. Most of us, aren’t”  
“That is not my fault. Neither it’s John’s”  
“Out. …Just… I can not work, and I can’t talk to you right now. So out you go”  
“Right. I’ll…”  
“No. Don’t go near the lab to bother my co-workers. I want you out of this place alltogether. ‘till the results come, you’re banned”

Sherlock made a series of wrongly restrained expressions and then left, interrupting Lestrade’s next line.

“Understand, we need to work and we are all…”

‘I need those results as fast as it is fisicly possible’  
‘Done already’  
‘when’  
‘give them 24 hours’  
‘afternoon’  
…  
‘Mycroft, today afternoon’  
‘not fisicly possible’

Sherlock had no idea where to go nor what to do to calm his rage, and he was not used to confusion… so he went home, and locked himself away…  
And when he had the bag of white powder in his hands, he stoped for one moment.

How long had he managed to stay clean? A day? A couple days… yeah…  
Did he really need this shot? Could he afford it? It was not for a case. It was out of addiction.  
He calculated the possibilities:

If the results were positive, then… he would have to acept John’s death. If they weren’t possitive… then he wouldn’t need this anymore.

He could take one last shot, just to go throu the wait, for the results that would either put his life back together, or crash the reminding pieces.  
He thoug of John. And did this for him.

“I will wait for the results, only that, and then it will all be over”

The wait was exaustive.  
He tried to distract himself with internet cases, then, run into the stupid press bitching still about John’s death, and why, and Sherlock’s involvement, and Sherlock’s moves…  
And they had somehow found out about the last one.

He pushed them aside, and tried playing the violin.  
He was interrupted by the phone, and jumped over it.

It was another paparazzi.

Sherlock nearly threw it down the toilet, but then remembered he would need it tomorrow, and kept it, just under the couch matress, and kept playing the violin higher and higher.

It was to no avail: it seemed like the thing ringed continously within his brain, and John was somewere in the flat shouting at him to behave like a normal man and pick it up…

At last, he had a brilliant idea: he run out to the drug store, and tried a new one: cloroform.

The phone woke him up nearly as late as 13PM next day.  
Sherlock felt confused and dizzy and like his tounge (wich had an odd taste) had been asleep.

The phone stopped ringing in the time it took him to reach it. But he didn’t need to catch the call:

He had nearly 20 missing calls from Lestrade.   
He run out the door.  
He didn’t even go throu the many texts. He didn’t care. He went directly to the mourge.

Molly saw him come in like it was some short of reborn war hero, and sheepesly walked up to him. Sherlock was very patient (his still half-numb state helped) while she tried to find words.

At the third try, she managed.

“…you were right. All so right. All the tests, all of it is… is…”  
“Fake”

She had to breathe deeply again

“They are all negative. We have check and double check and even the dental test… is all negative. All wrong… that man, as much as he looks like him, is not John Watson”

Sherlock’s wicked grin came back to his face for the first time in a long time.   
He jumped on place, spoon around and claped his hands. Then, he shouted.

“HE IS ALIVE!!” And laughted maniacly.

Molly tried to follow him with dumbfolded eyes

“you know?” 

Sherlock turned to her.

“Oh, no I can not know for sure but basing myself on the percentage the posibilities offer I am deducing the real John is probably alive! He is alive!”

Sherlock turned for the door, the corpse meaning nothing to him anymore, as it was no longer John, but one more dead extranger that happened to look like him…  
But Molly stopped him with a shout.

“Wait! Please,…”

He faced her in the last moment.

“How did you know? Please, I need to know it”

Sherlock fully turned to her

“You were insistent, but you let us burry him before you got him back. It can not be stuborness, there must have been clues. How did you know? How could you possibly see past… the dead body, and the case, and all of the evidence…”

Sherlock had two good answers.

“There were suspicious clues. Every person has a distinctive, unique scent, wich also depends of things like diet and life style. John did not consume alchool nor tobaco and even under it he did not smell the same. Also, he is a strong, hot-headed, cold-bloded ex-soldier. He would’ve fight back if he was not drugged. And that man didn’t.  
Things like that and the scratch on the knucles were clues to consider… but not defnitive. The DNA test was”

Molly took it all in. He had been right from the begining, from the very begining, thou drugs and the loss and the baby… and mourning companions telling him off…

“Also…”

Molly looked at him again.

“There was a time, when everyone was after me, to such an extent, that you had to help me fake my death. And as everyone in the streets, and in the press, and the autorities themselves were chaising me, and even when holding in his hands proof against me, specificly made for him, when all proof pointed at me, he somehow stood by my side.  
Even when I myself told him it was true. All throu two years. He just choose not to believe it”

Molly looked at him with those eyes of adoration again. Falling for him all over again.  
And then something got out her mouth before even thinking.

“You guys are just made for each other right”

Sherlock stood, and then, oddly he chucled.

“I… was going to tell you that John use to joke about that… but that would be wrong.   
‘cause he’s alive! He’s alive”

He got out the door, and nearly run up the corridor like a maniac, ocasionaly repeating it.


	7. Chapter 7

Mrs. Watson was, oh so slowly fighting depression. She was a strong lady, but she was also old. Still, she had to stay strong for her granddaughter.  
Taking how complicated it is to raise a child, and the fact that she already had a difficult one, even if she managed, she was old, and tired, and what age would the baby have when she passed away…?

Her world had become unbalanced, between depressing silence and confusing emptiness, and the chaos of a new baby to care for…

Then, someone called at her door.  
She opened it, and found there an old lady with a bright smile, and… well, Sherlock Holmes.

“Great news! John is probably still alive!”  
“Oh, Sherlock, please! Give the poor lady some time to sit down first at least…”  
“Nonsense, Mrs. Hudson, she has mourned too much out of place already”

Said the man while walking inside without even bothering to ask. He let the old lady to the other old lady “Hi, we met at the funeral…” And went on search for the baby.

Mrs. Watson would remember that day alone as one of the most confusing of her life:  
The sudden great news, blended with the fear of them being in vane, and this odd man who had been so important for John, carelessly entering her place, to hold Rosie on his arms and move around the room like it was a slow, classic dance, while talking to her like she was a bloddy grown up…

“Your father is alive, Rosie, well, that’s my deduction. And I barely am wrong. I’m going to find him, and you’ll live with him again very soon, I promise”

He even went closer to wishper in her ear

“Even if he is feeling a bit unsure of taking you back in so soon, don’t worry, I’ll talk him into it… don’t tell him I said that. How could you?”

Mrs. Watson felt uneasy with how he managed the baby: like it was any other day to day tool, like the phone or a notebook. Casually, naturally. And she wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing…

This was the afternoon on the same day the results arrived. Sherlock had wanted to make good use of time after wasting half the day asleep.

When shouting around “he is alive” after the results had come, Lestrade had nearly crashed into Sherlock on purpose. He tripped over his words apologizing and thanking him and asking what to do in order to find John, and fiery assured him he was at his service.

He even seemed to want to hug him.

Sherlock went through it all awkwardly looking at anywhere else and eager to jump into action. When Lestrade finally run out of words to ramable with Sherlock looked very deep into his eyes and said “The game is on”

This seemed to explode withing the poor man and rebuild him in less than a minute:

No longer mourning, his vacations forgotten, and feeling nearly ten years younger, Lestrade jumped onto Sherlock’s tail like a hound dog willing to kill something.

…more precisely, a certain someone, whoever was responsible for taking John from them, and not content with that, killing someone else to give them as a joke.

Lestrade directed his men firm and passionate like it was the academy, and Sherlock let them follow him, once again, to the crime scene.  
There was not much anymore to see there, and it was not fully reliable after days, but he needed to check it once more, this time, as a kidnap scenario.

He made a few comments, Lestrade listening closely at all times, and then took a cab and went home.

He sat on the floor, all notes taken in front of him, and entered his mind palace.

The place was a mess, but no longer tormented by a destructive tornado. He could walk through the wreckage, throw down doors and rebuild walls. Use the place once again.  
And there, he considered all the possibilities the new version f the case offered…

He texted Lestrade with the most probable deductions that could be useful and then…  
He felt anxious. But not for drugs. No need for it, as tempting as they were.  
He wanted a distraction. His body had been at tension and his mind in distress for so long…

But he didn’t want to sleep. He had slept enough the past day.  
…he ended up sleeping in his mind palace, witch, wrecked as it was, still felt safe and homey now that he knew John was not gone for good. 

He was somewhere waiting to be found.

Lestrade called the next morning, early. Sherlock waited patiently for half a second and interrupted his silence.

“You know I prefer texts if you can’t find words…”  
“We found… another one”  
“another one what?”  
“…ah… a body. A corpse, Sherlock”  
“…”  
“…It looks just like John”

The new corpse had been found hung by the neck, right in the middle of the London bridge. 

Have you ever seen a human hung by the neck? His tongue hung of his mouth, and his neck was in quite an unnatural angle.

It had on similar clothes to those John had when he was missing, and which had been found on the fake John.  
…the first one, that is.

Having it removed, and lying on the ground in front of them, Lestrade nervously clenched and unclenched his fists, looking at the dead and Sherlock one at a time.

“Well? W-what do you think…”

Sherlock took a moment and started.

“The clothes are not the same, thou similar to the ones on the first one. Actually they seem to be new. Also, the first time, the body was left somewhere it would take time for us to find it. But this is the opposite: the killers (it has to be more than one, probably a small, very dedicated group) they took a great risk just so that we would have it on our faces instantly. The killer had changed their course of action…”

Greg insisted, willing to get to his most urgent question

“Yeah but… ugh. Why…? Sherlock, you don’t think this is the real John this time, right?”

Sherlock took in all the details of the pale, deformed face of a new dead John.

“…I can not know for sure. I suspect that it is not, but that could be infundated by my personal wish”  
“… oh… ok, so… why are they doing this? Serial killers, taking him, changing the plan so suddenly…?”  
“… they are playing with us. The first time, they wanted to fool us: see how we would act, with a dead John on our hands. But, probably, without really killing the real one…  
This time, however, we already know the trick so the details are not so important anymore. …They just do this to see our reaction. Like telling you you can not eat sugar, and then hanging candy on your face”

Lestrade started babbling “It is a risky move, the bridge thing, there has to…” But Sherlock had crouched closer and carefully whispered on his ear.

“…They must be very close, watching out reaction”

Lestrade went still, and instinctively looked around, like the killer would be at plain sight. Sherlock walked away, already texting.

‘Don’t tell anyone. Don’t even write it. Send me the results at once’

Then, to his brother

‘Fasten this too, please’  
‘Of course. You were right about the Drs. Death. I must admit I am impressed’

Sherlock ignored that one. He concentrated.  
He had been so careless. Shouting around ‘he’s alive’ like that at his working space, when it was the most probable place for the killer to be lurking, waiting for his reaction.  
It could be anyone! …and also, the press had found out. Goddamet!

The cab was having trouble to either get or leave anyplace Sherlock or even Lestrade would go to. They had already found about the first corpse being fake, and the second being another John…

…oh.

Sherlock texted Lestrade again.

‘make sure to know how did the press find out any detail form the investigation’

After all, what use is provoking a reaction, if you don’t have a camera to catch it?


	8. Chapter 8

They all let go a deep breath when the new DNA results came up.  
It was fake. Again.  
Sherlock felt invested. He took a cab to the bridge, and looked at the scene from a window on his mind palace, were he looked up every data he had regarding the case, the víctims, the press ... And spraking of the press.

They persecuted him like flys to shit, and for once he did not mind: he had the theory that the murder may be involved with the press, and whatever people may say of them, it was not as important as John's life.

Two days later, he had estimated a posible number of implicates, together with the material they may be using, and the kind of place they could be stated in...

And he got a call from a paniked Greg Lestrade.  
Oh no.

A dead body had been found at the shore. Face down deep in the mud.  
John's face. Again.  
Sherlock breathed deeply. The chances that this was not John but jet another fake one rose and trembled like in a wicked game of bets. 

He retreated home were he stood still on his chair, looking at nothing, right in front of John's empty chair.  
For days.

From time to time he played the violín or conducted a couple little experiments. He exchanged many texts with Lestrade, and only one with Mycroft.

'The press is out of control. How many corpses do you have? People tend to pánic over things like this. Keep me informed'  
'Good question' 

Mrs. Hudson hummed around cleaning the eternal mess of his home and making tea, wich was her way of dealing with stress.

She lied a tray of tea at his side and stood right there, staring in silence.  
He noticed.

"What"  
"So?"  
"So what?"  
"This new body, is it John's?"  
"...no, I don't think so"  
"Good heavens, that's good... I'm still sorry for the poor things"

Sherlock hmmed in response, and received another call.  
He went rigid. Calmly peeked at the phone and then dropped it annoyed.

Another one.   
This one had been found poisoned, on the street...

And this one was very different.

Molly and Sally kept their faces as blanck as they could. And gulped.  
In between them, Lestrade nerviously looked back and forth from Sherlock, to the new corpse, on the table.

It was a woman.  
It had John's face, and was wearing similar clothes, but as soon as they were removed there was no doubth.

"So...? Do you think it means... Something?"

Sherlock looked at him like he would punish him for daring to speak such words.

"Of course it means something. Don't you read my blog?"  
"But... Why...?"  
"The first corpse was so carefully copied that we didn't distinguish them. The second and the third one no longer had John's war scar, but still looked very much alike, clothes and all. This one has less care on the clothes... And keeps her breasts. They didn't even hold them, they just let the clothes cover them..."  
"So. It is a message"  
"...the killer wants us to have the sensation that no one is safe. They will keep doing this while we keep guessing. They don't even need to find victims who look like John. It can be anyone"  
"...even a woman" said Lestrade.  
"They can, and they will change their hair, face, eyes, clothes... Anyone"  
Said Molly. And Sally walked out of the place. She didn't have to say it: Sherlock was intelligent enough to know exactly what she was thinking.

"People are dying becouse of you, bastard. And you'll be enjoying it"

Sherlock didn't move. Lestrade moved a few steps arround, nerviously, and then walked ver y close to the detective and asked, ver y low, like he did lately.

"So, do we have a plan...?"

And, very low, without moving his lips, sherlock answered.

"Yes"


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ending is creeping closer, and Sherlock is an arsehole  
> Greg just has to cope with all the stress alone... or not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry for being so late... my only excuse ar vacatios, I guess

“Sherlock? Sherlock!” Inspector Lestrade came into the room, red like a tomato and panting like he had run over Mrs Hudson and up the stairs. The old lady stood behind him and they both spoke at the same time.

“I did try to stop him, dear…”  
“WHAT IS YOU BLODDY PROBLEM!?”

Sherlock didn’t lift his gaze of the computer screens (he was working with five)

“Bussy. Find someone else for whatever you need”  
“There’s been two new murders of… of people who look like John!”  
“Oh!” Mrs Hudson took her hand to her chest.  
“two? I thoug it was just one”

Lestrade turned to her.  
“You think is not enough?” He turned to the detective “Why aren’t you picking up the phone?”  
“I disassembled it”  
“Why”  
“It was distracting. I’m trying to work”

Lestrade tried to breathe deep and compose himself.  
“And I hope you are doing all you can to find John’s eh… kidnapper, and the killer of our six victims who had his face. …Unlike the press says”  
“The press is right”

Sherlock answered while typing in the laptop in front of him.

“I am no longer working in that case… and I doon’t care how many more dead John’s you find, nor how did they die”

There was silence on the room, scept for the quick typing next to the window.  
Lestrade passed a hand throug his hair and spoke with treambling voice.

“why?”  
“Becouse I can’t find the solution, and no matter what I do it just keeps getting worse. I’ve decided I can’t keep up with the stress and frustration nor can I do anything to remedy it… but find a distraction”

He left that laptop aside and started with the other one.

“So, I am now doing something usefull and working with new cases”

Lestrade waited for a few seconds. Then he walked up to him and reclined on the table.

“I don’t believe you. You have pretended to fail before, and every time you’ve come out on top. And you will not be less now that John's life is at stake”  
“Oh really?”  
“Yes. Yes I don’t know what is your plan, becouse I am not as smart as you but I know you care for him, even if you pretend you don’t. I know you will not let him die, like you left the six others to be picked up by my men”

Sherlock stopped typing and looked at his eyes. Behind him, still on the door, Mrs Hudson made a gasping sound.

Sherlock spoke with the most threatening voice he had, wich was kind of scary.

“Get out of my house and let me work”

Greg tried to calculate how far he could get, and he knew he was going too far but he couldn’t help it. He had to say

“I will. But only becouse I know you are actually still working to find him”

And five minutes later, greg Lestrade got back to his car limping a bit and holding his brushied chin, with a broken lip and a black eye.

Sherlock carassed his knucles before going back to work… on a case of a missing dog.  
Mrs Hudson interrupted him again. Her tone of voice was cold and unsecure.

“The phone, dear. Its for you”  
“I’m working!”  
“You tell that to your brother” She left it on the table.

Sherlock groaned and picked it up.  
“Please don’t be Mycroft”  
“Sherlock”  
“What”  
“…did you just beat that inspector who works with you?”  
“…Yes”  
“Why, Sherlock?”  
“He came to my house, interrumpted my work, and openly disrespected me”  
“And he had all the right to do so after how you dropped of the case. The case of John. Tell me, what are you playing at…? Sherlock?”

Sherlock had thrown the phone over to the wall, with such force it broke into pieces.

Lestrade didn’t know if he was having a nerve atack or just about to, but his face hurt, he was confused, he felt a preassure on his chest and he had just lied to the agent who had come with him.

“No, he didn’t hit me, I just fell downstairs”

It was ovbious it was a lie, but he didn’t want to complicate more things by getting Sherlock into jail. Whatever he was doing, it had o be part of the case. It had to be.

He breathed deeply again, and his breath came out shaggy… and he decided he needed a drink. So he stopped at the closest place and ordered something…  
Before it was served, someone with a familiar voice sat next to him and announced he would pay that drink and another one.

It was the other Holmes. Mycroft.

“So he did hit you”

No response

“why do you think he dropped of the case? Its all over the newspapers. ‘Sherlock Holmes quits the case of the many murdered Watsons’ uh… quite dramatic… you know why?”

Lestrade wanted to say something, but voice failed him

“You must have an opinion or you wouldn’t have ended up fighting now… why do you think he did that?”

Mycroft croached over to him.

“inspector Lestrade. You are responsible of the case. You have always responded for My brother’s implication on your work. Tell me is there something that… could’ve got him… upset or whatnot?”  
“…I don’t know…”  
“Inspector Lestrade. When you went to see him, did you notice something… odd? …like…signals of possible… efects of drugs?”

Lestrade didn’t answer he just denied with his head. Mycroft insisted.

“Is that a no?”  
“…No… I dunno…”

Mycroft shiged. “Inspector Lestrade… Ins…pector Lestrade?”

Greg was crying.

He had been holding it for a while without noticing and he was no longer capable. One tear managed to scape his tightly closed eyes and now an army of traitors run down his cheeks. He was silently, ovbiously, crying.

Mycroft stood still on his seat next to him, akwardly staring with wide eyes.  
He opened his mouth, but he could say nothing as Greg’s shoulders combulsed and he fought to breath in strangled ghasps, as silently as possible, rivers flowing from his eyes and dripping off his chin. 

Mycroft looked around unconfortable and thoug of his possibilities… what to do with a crying man? …he decided the easiest thing to do was to hand over a hadechief.  
Greg took it eagerly and wiped his face desperatly, to no avail. He kept dehidrating at a fast peace throu his eyes, and spoiling the handechief beyond posibility of Mycroft asking for it back. Ever.

The older Holmes asked silently for a glass of water and placed it on front of the agent, who, after a few seconds of struggle, took it eagerly.

“thanks” He muttered when he got part of his voice back.  
“Don’t mention it” Mycroft answered with a disgusted expression.  
“I take it you are under a lot of stress… hadn’t you just been on vacations?”  
“I… I did to cope with John’s death! And then turns out he’s not. And more people keeps dying… with his face! And Sherlock…”

Mycroft checked his watch while the other let flow all of the situation thoug his ragged breath, until Greg noticed this was not helping or whatever.

“I know John’s alive… but I can’t help to think of him being dead, with all the burial and his dead face again and again and with Sherlock behaving like this…!”  
“So he is behaving odd. How? Like on drugs?”

Greg shook his head.

“No he is smarter than that… he must have a plan… he’s thingking of something… doing something… he must be lying I know”  
“How do you know?”

Greg looked at him.

“I… I don’t know! But… just…” He shiged “Look, Sherlock is… my friend, and John too”  
“We don’t have any friends”  
“SHUT UP AND BARE WITH ME!”

Mycroft was so shocked by this outburst he just carefully wiped out a drop of saliva from his face ad listened to whatever Greg had to say.

“You… you are smart, aren’t you? I am no doctor but I know, you know… you can not be healthy without friends”

Mycroft shiged.  
“Does Sherlock sound like healthy to you?”  
“he… ugh. He is an arsehole! He has no idea how to treat people, he… is just…”  
Deep breath  
“…But John… somehow, did it. He did it again and again, no matter how far Sherlock went or what he did, John just… followed. He knew exactly what to say, and when he didn’t know he would just… trust him. How did he do it?”

“…You just believe Sherlock is doing this for a reason?”  
“…I… don’t know” sight “I… I guess I can only hope John was right”


	10. Chapter 10

Sally run into Lestrade’s office.

“We have something huge”  
“Another one?”  
“No. Its… its a video”

Lestrade took a second to react, but he pushed down whatever he was munching with one last glup of coffee and he ran past Molly demanding

“I don’t care how but contact Sherlock…!”  
“I’m already here”

And Greg jumped like a rabbit. Turned around and saw him. He was there, he seemed calm… but Greg could tell he was eager.

“You… you knew this would happen”

Sherlock walked on to werever they would watch the video.

“The murderer is a prankster. He prepares a little play for us to react to. For me, specially. He wants to see us dessperate in public, the news, the papers… by not reacting to his little show, I made him starve” Sherlock stopped in front of the screen while someone put the thing on.

“eager to make something new, to call our atention, and so, commit a mistake”  
“You provoqued him”  
“Them”  
“They killed people. To call your atention, and you provoqued them for more”  
“They were already doing it and they would never stop if we didn’t change the course of action”

The video was on. And it was a few seconds of blank panic before anyone could understad what was on screen. What it all meant.

There was a table. The camera was aparently posted on it, on high.  
Facing it there was a folded paper with the message ’48 H guess who’

And on the other side of the table, against the wall there were four chairs.  
In each one, sat a completly different person, tied down and muzzled, they all wearing the same clothes, and the same face.

There was silence in the room. Then Lestrade needed to do something and spoke.

“When did it arrive?”  
“…Molly found it on the morge sir. This morning. It was in a paper bag with ‘Holmes’ written on it”  
“They do move around our working space”  
“They were not caught on camera?”  
“We are checking them but it seems they were…”  
“SILENCE”

Sherlock had lifted one hand. He seemed paniqued at the sight of John, alive, on camera. And another one, and another one, and a third one, plus a fourth.

And at least three were not real. But perhaps… perhaps one…

Wait. Fuck perhaps. Sherlock’s brain overloaded. The walls of his mind castle vibrated with the sound of a fire alarm aparently instaled by John without his consentiment.

“A paper! A… notebook… ANYTHING!”

Sally jumped to his side with a small notebook and a pen. He ripped them off her hands with the ferocity of a rabid dog and without noticing her and demanded

“Start the record again”

No one dared to question. Nor speak. Someone reestarted the video and they all contamplated to Sherlock writing whatever on it, passing page after page, and writing more, without taking his eyes from the screen.

And that’s becouse Sherlock was brilliant, and he knew John.  
It didn’t take him a second to tell him apart. He could do it among millions, literally.

There could be millions of operated victims on that video and Sherlock could still tell.

But, as it was, there were only four:

The one on the left was crying his eyes out, barely even looking at the camera, crouched as low as the ropes would allow it.  
The one next to him was trembling, croached to one side and lookingdown as to get as far as possible of an off-screen threat.  
The one on the right was still. Docile, in a terrified bunny kind of way, and looked at the camera like hoping something good could possibly come out of it.

The second one starting from the right stood tall and firm. He moved his head in a bit of a herratic motion, but his eyes were stuck to the camera. He had that expression Sherlock knew very well.

The expression he made when Sherlock had consumed all of his patience. Or when he could just jump to the face of the criminal who had particularily struck his nerves. Or when he was very concentrated on something that should be scary.

The moment he had placed eyes on his image Sherlock had known it was him.  
And it took him mere seconds to notice the only thing odd was the way John was moving his head. And it seemed herratic, but it was not. It had purpose.  
It was a message.

John was writing letters on the air with his nose. It was that simple, that easy, that much complicated, that much messy.  
It may have seemed casual nerviousness to the captor or anyone else, but John was looking straight to the camera, to Sherlock.

Like a couple arguing across the table with mere glares. Like they were playing a game of guess and Watson was saying ‘you better don’t fuck this up like you did with my salad’ without words.

Sherlock finished writing, and he repeated the video just to make sure he hadn’t miss anything. His flooding mind caught on every detail, again: John seemed underfed, filty, stressed. He had a bruise on the side of his face and marks on his hands.  
He had been beaten, and fought back.

That was John. He had been kidnapped, beaten, held in poor conditions, his face copied to those of diying victims… and he still would fight, and he would still sit calm, and glare at him throu a camera, and try to send a message.

Sherlock was so in love. He loved it. The video that provided him with clues to find John, to see him alive and in good use of his capacities, the fact that John knew him and sent this to him… and the man on the chair glaring at him.

There was a chance that it was fake:  
Maybe John was dead and the video was just to play with him like the rest of the case. Maybe it had arrived late and John was already dead. Maybe it was not really John, but a double who had studied his behaivour and was sending a false clue…  
But those were unprobable cases. His instinct, his entire brain vibrated with the name of John Watson.

“Sherlock? What’s it? Sherlock? What you got?”

Sherlock demanded silence with a hiss, and concentrated on the pages: ripped them off, extendd them on the table in order, and worked on the possible meanings of the messyly delivered letters. It was easy, really.

“I got it. I got a…”  
“A clue?”  
“…I got a place. The place. I got them”


	11. Chapter 11

Guard 2 was in the room when Sherlock and the others saw the video. So was Guard 5.

The detective shouted eureka, and the two of them exchanged a meaningfull, discret look.   
He went to the bathroom, entered the second cabin, took out a piece of paper and wrote  
'Dog left clues on video. Brains got it. FLEE'  
He folded the paper as much as he could and stuck it behind the WC. Then, pushed the ledder, got out, and took his phone.  
'2-wc urgent. g2'

And he walked out. Seconds later, Guard 1, dressed as a janitor walked in and picked up the note.  
He hadn't read it jet when the door busted open, nearly kicked off its place, and three agents dressed in black jumped on him to hold him still.  
One of them picked the note, readed it, and closed the door.  
Then, he called Mycroft. The others would get Guard 2 and guard 5 if it was for mere questioning...

But they didn't get Guard 3. Nor 4. Not in time, at least.

Lestrade held Guard 1 by the neck of the suit.  
"Who do you work with? Where are they!?"  
He didn't open his mouth. Greg shook him meanecingly, and to his shock, the other smiled widely.

"Ain't this exciting?!"  
And Greg's face paled with horror as Guard 1 laughted on it.

Sherlock was already on his way. The driver got a phone call, noded, changed course and passed the phone to Sherlock.

"What?"  
"Good and bad news"  
"Not in the mood, Mycroft"  
"We got three suspicious subjects"  
"And?"  
"...seems like they were calling ahead for us"  
"Did you get anything of them?"  
"Only maniatic laughter, aparently"

Sherlock hung on his brother. None of this was remotly funny to him.

Doc pushed the panic bottom. A siren echoed throu the tunnels, and his mates started running. Doc run out the stairs and started the engine of the truck. The others oppened the door of the big room, and hearded the copies up the stairs like sheep. They were terrified and high and didn't even atempt to disobey.  
Dog did.

He was sleeping when the siren started and one of his captors entered the room on a hurry. Any tiny failure on their plan could earn him time or clues for Sherlock, so withou thinking, he impused resistance: when the other crouched down to uncuff him, he kicked him on the face.  
As a result, he got kicked back, but what was a broken rib compared to freedom?  
It was necesary three men and a syngerine to drag him up the stairs and into the truck with the others.

They drove away, but before one hour had pass the sound of a helicopter disturbed the tense silence. Doc sweared and demanded for the truk to stop.   
The co pilot of the flying machine descrived the situation: someone got off the co-pilot's place, went to the back of the truck and got five hostages out.   
The truk kept on, and the co-pilot walked into the woods with his hostages. The pilot of the helicopter didn't know what to do.

Doc shouted histeracly as the four copies advanced up hill among the trees, terrified of him. Dog, by his side, walked slowly, his body feeling heaby with the drugs.  
Suddenly, Dog stopped moving. He stood still, listening avobe the trees, over Doc's shouting, the helicopter.  
Doc pointed the gun at him.

"Keep moving!"  
Dog hesitated. He still felt sleepy, weak, heavy... But the helicopter was just there  
Doc tried a different aproach: he pointed at the copies.  
"Move!"

Dog noded, and kept moving forwards... until he was close enough.  
Then he jumped onto the gun, and held it with all the strenght and weight he had at the moment. It was not much.

"Run!" the copies hesitated "run you idiots! disperse! Run!"

And the four of them run in different directions.   
Doc shouted in desspair, kikced Dog and finally got to point the gun and shot... And the bullets went missing in between the trees and the distance.

The truck was as well as cornered already. There was better chance of getting lost into the woods. So sherlock joined the group that continued the chase up hill, among trees.  
Soon they encountered one of the victims: he had Watson’s face, but an extranger’s expresion of terror.   
He also had a higer pitched voice than john's  
He was Hysterical, thou seemed very happy and relieved to be among the police.  
He was babbling so much Sherlock couldn’t help but to walk up to him, slap him across that fake face of his and shout at him.

“Where are they taking John!?”

The ex-hostage stuttered a bit

“Wh-whos John?”  
“The original person who’s face you got!”

The man’s eyes widened with understanding.

“Dog. He… he tried to resist. He was… struggling, while we all run… he…”

Sherlock would listen no more. He was restless and demanding as only he would get the entire two minutes that the police took to set into action a small team of General Purpose malinose dogs wich inmediatly got the scent and run up the hill with the whole team runing close behind.  
Sherlock knew how the traking dogs worked, but he was still annoyed at the sight of them being slowed down by their handlers, who at all times held them with a long leash.

At a point, the dogs got restless, and the specialists had to stop for a moment.

“oh, what is it now!?”  
“The track divides: here’s probably were they dispersed. Don’t worry that’s why we got five dogs: one for each missing target”

And so the searching party divided: one agent and his dog backed up by two officers went in each direction, scept the one heading up and front, as it seemed to be the stronger scented track, and most likely to include their criminal, it was follow by two dogs, with theyr workers, sherlock side by side and Lestrade and the rest of the team falling a bit behind, perhaps due to the dificult landscape, or the many donuts.

The dogs started getting restless when reaching a large rock covered in moss and surrounded by thick bushes and trees. Sherlock couldn’t see what was on the top, but the dogs jumped up the rock and suddenly the air was struck by the sound of a gunshot, and dog whining.

“Put down the gun!”  
“I’ll sut again!”  
“Put down the gun or I’ll send the dog!”  
“I’ll shut before its closer!”  
“Stoop!”

Sherlock run up the rock, sliping in the moss and climbing frantically, stood in the way of the handler and held the hysterical animal by the leash.

“Isn’t me you want?”

There was a moment of silence. Or so thoug Sherlock. He didn’t catch the handler’s arguing, one of them carying the hurt dog down the rock. He only saw a man with a white chaquet, holding a gun, and on his knees, right in front of him, John.

He had his hands tied and was gagged, dressed in dirty clothes that looked even bigger size than his due to the fact that he was so much skinnier. There was dark shadows below his eyes but that hopefull, worried stare he was gibing Sherlock and only him was all so his, so familiar.  
Sherlock could read so many details off him: the probable self-defense wounds on his hands and use of soft drugs to make him easier to handle, a fresh hit to the head that had produced a small cut, and a houndred other tiny details that spelled lack of propper conditions such as hygiene and nourishment. Together with daily dosis of severe stress.

At the feet of the rock, the police team struggled to form a circle not too wide around the spot. The injured dog’s handler explained the situation and Lestrade panicked, looking around for a solution.

Back in Sherlock’s head, there was loud ringing, like another fire alarm set on his mind-castle, so strong that it made the walls tremble and his tympani bleed, the certain knolege that he was alive.   
It was him. John Watson, right there a few feet of him. He had been alive all this time, kept away somewere. And he was here now. And still in danger.

Sherlock looked up to the criminal, taking in all of the details.   
He couldn’t take much bedsides the detail that he had a high level of vanity and was probably obsesive-compulsive, or just very obsesive and very compulsive all throug his daily routine.

He seemed happy to be here, now, excited, even, like a kid who loved pirates and found himself suddenly in an actual pirate ship.  
He smiled at him.

“Well, Brains. Finally coming for your dog?”  
“He’s not a dog, he is a human being”  
“Oh but what’s the diference? You want him right? There may be many other like him but you want this one”

He tiped John on his shoulder with the gun as he spoke, slowly.

“But you are not gonna get him”  
“why are you doing this? You must think you are so inteligent don’t you?”  
“Oh, I’m intelligent. My plan fooled brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes, and threw him into depresion! Dog here was kind of worried, even”  
“only for a while”  
“Yes, and even so, you seemed to be suspicious of the first body, but you did let them bury it. And you were fighting with Dog’s family over Dog’s family already, hum?”

Doc looked at his hostage seeking a possible reaction.

“guess you wanted a puppy of the same line uh?”  
“But why the other murders?” Sherlock intentionaly ignored the dialoge over the baby, as he didn’t want Rosie into any of this   
“why were you so dessperate to seek a reaction on me? So many murders so close one after the other each one so obvious, each one diferent, why? Why you want my desspair?”

The criminal licked his lips. He had dreamed with this moment and it was finally here.

“For Moriarty”

Sherlock breathed deeply. Of course. Even after killing himself he had left seeds of himself to make sure his wishes were carried.  
And followers to carry them.

“You… you worked with him?”  
“I worked for him. I learned of him as much as my average mind was capable of. He was the new step for humanity. Supirior. Necesary in this world. And you…”  
“He killed himself that was not my fault!”  
“He wanted you to die. And the condition was that yourd friends would live. He died, and you didn’t pay the price!”

Sherlock thoug of a way out. He had to buy time. He had to keep him speaking. Maybe beg for John’s life? No, that could make a sudden shot so satisfactory…  
The dog next to him barked and tried to advance. Its handler held it firmly by the collar, front paws scratching the air.  
The police team a few feet down and scatered irregularily around spoke on the radio and comunicated wih the helicopter that still floated above the trees, too thick to see throu.

Lestrade, hysterical, walked around the police circle looking for a better angle and distance.

“So he was brilliant. And so am I. Arent you forgetting someone?”  
“…what who?”  
“You had everything planned out to avenge him, but it didn’t work did it? Why?”  
“You…”  
“No, not me. It was not me. I wouldn’t have found you if it wasn’t for him. So much for a dog”  
“It doesn’t matter. You aren’t getting him back. You both die here”  
“Oh but does it matter? Moriarty was so brilliant, and he blew his brains out”  
“Shut up”  
“He didn’t do it for John Watson. No”  
“Shut up!”  
“John managed to blow your little game, but who Moriarty wanted was always me. Its me who he shot his brilliant brains out for”

It happened so fast  
Doc pointed at Sherlock with the gun in an almost reflex gesture, but that was enough.  
John saw the chance and jumped over his arm, strugling to hold it, gun pointing nowere.  
The dog handler set the animal free, and it takled the two men, biting into the arm with wich Doc was fighting John’s full-body grip.

With the dog holding and mauling one of his arms, he only had one hand to hold the gun, occupied by a weakened John, he was still struggling, still resisting, if he shot…

One last gun shot filled the air and Sherlock flinched.  
He stared at the scene in silent panic. In a moment, the man who had been holding the gun stopped strugling, lost his foot and fell backwards, slipping from the top of the rock and falling onto the bushes behing it, in front of the police ring, which hurried to close over him.

A few meters behing the rock, Greg Lestrade breathed deeply and put down his recently shot gun.

The dog stood at the edge of the rock, barking at the man who had just fallen, as the police team secured him and picked him up of the bushes.  
Sherlock didn’t hear the barks, nor the murmur of the officers, he didn’t even care if the criminal had died from the shot or from the fall.

He run up to John, helped him into a kneeling position a bit away from the edge, and firmly ripped the gag of his mouth.

“Sherlock” John breathed out, like he had been under water all this time, like that was all he wanted to say for months, like it came from his soul.  
And the sound of it, the way it came out, John’s expresion with eyes fixed on his, it was one thousand times the climax of a drugs shot.

Sherlock leaned in and held him in a tight embrace, like he needed to feel him breathing against his chest, and both stood like that for what could seem like hours, even if the would would wreck around them.

Jet he did not kiss him, for that was still terrifying and he had had enough terror for today.


	12. Epilogue

One could understand the need for space and rest after being throu a traumatic situation, but this was not the case with John Watson.

He had spent the last weeks in a small room, lying on a dirty matress, chained to the wall, when he was not chained to a chair for Doc to poke at his face and war scars.  
But whenever he had been moved arround he had been drugged to aboid struggle, so he had had plenty of rest, too much, really.

He embraced Sally and Lestrade, and promissed him to invite him at the bar very soon, jumped into the car and borrowed a phone to call his mother.  
He assured her he was in perfect conditions (exagerating a little here, with the obvious intention to calm her down) and told her to come visit for dinner.

He even texted Mycroft to thank him for helping with the mission!

“Isn’t that a bit too much?”  
“Absolutly not. This is one of the many things I thoug of doing when I got out”  
“Pray tell, what is next on the list?”  
“A long and relaxing bath with bubbles and music, unhealthy dinner and a cupcake the size of your head”

Sherlock snickered, and they both laughted it off akwardly on the back of the car. It was oddly familiar.

John jumped onto Mrs. Hudson’s arms when she oppend the door and squeezed her carefully, to her delight. Then he excused himself, not without first mentioning his mother would be coming with the baby for dinner.

Mrs. Hudson couldn’t be happier.

John did just as he said he would, and then put on his usual clotes, wich were now a bit baggy on him. No big deal: he planned on refilling them soon.  
Sherlock found him sitting on his chair, sipping some tea and contempling the clotes he had been wearing wich burn in the fire place with what seemed like delight.

He couldn’t help but remember one last time the conversation they had before he had been gone. ‘I refuse to apologice for a salad’

He decided to tackle the topic with humor, and sat by his side  
“Guess you won’t be eating salad for a while now”  
John emited a quiet, breathy laught and Sherlock guessed he had not been the only one repeating those words within his head.

“We could organice the fridge propperly from now on. …Just to avoid further accidents….”  
“Actually, we shall reorganice the whole kitchen, soon. The entire house, if necesary”

Sherlock glanced at him quizzicaly.

“…Im planing to retrieve Rosi. If that is okay with you. I will also have to discuss it with Mrs. Hudson, but, eh… she is my daughter and I am getting her back and that is not negotiable”

Sherlock stared at him for a few seconds and then reclined on his chair and answered:

“Of course. I… just hope there is still space in your… routine, for me. Even if you, perhaps, just need help with the child?”

John siged and looked back at him.

“Is it true, what they said, that you tried to get the custody?”  
“…yes”  
…  
“How did you know it was not me, the first time? Was it Molly?”  
“No, it was the smell”  
“…what?”  
“The smell”…

John meant it when he said he was willing to get his daughter back into his life.   
From the moment his mother came in, he wouldn’t stop paying attention to the infant, holding her, complaining with horror for how fast she’d grown, trying to make her react, wondering how far did she remember him…

“The first months, and the first years of a persons life are crucial for cominication and social skills. Even from the womb, they recognice voices. So, even if you expent a long time without her, she must still have something of you in her, after the important, also long time you spent with her”   
“Well, thats very true… I still feel like I lost some very important time with her, and I hope I can get it back”  
“You did loose time with her, but it is more important the upbringing. Even if Rosie was an adopted child you had never met before, you plan on raising her and from now on she would still be your child”

There was an odd silence, in wich it was balanced if what he had just said was more reassuring or not. Oh well.   
Also, John didn’t get a cupcake the size of Sherlock’s head, but he did get many cupcakes of different tastes and colors wich he ate untill he felt sick.

He had known it was not healthy to eat so much and so heaby right after habing a poor diet for weeks, but he considered it worth it. He was a doctor, after all.

When it was time for Mrs. Watson to leave, he refused to let her part with the baby, and it was needed a lot of resoning to get him to.   
But he still did in one condition: he would visit Rosi every day in hopes that she would get used to him and not make a fuss when she was finally translated.

The kidnappers of John and the other victims, and killers of some of them don’t deserve much mentioning, but for the satisfaction of the reader it will be stated that John and the other survivors made very easy their identification.

John’s doctor stated that he should be back in shape before he took his daughter back. John felt outraged, but it didn’t really make much difference: he reincorpored to the routine, including his blog entries, and gained his weight very easily and quick.   
His aptitude and determination made his psicological recovery quite quick too.  
Whenver asked about it, he would remind them that he worked and lived with Sherlock Holmes. “Plus, I got a blog” (He firmly refused to descrive too much of his traumatic expirience, thou)

Very soon, they were geting ready to take in little Rosie, plan wich included big changes in the kitchen, rooms and their actual routines.

“Look at the bright side” Said John when dividing the kitchen and installing a baby door, at one point when Sherlock seemed in panic.

“You will never again get bored. You will always have work with Rosie arround”  
…

Sherlock made a humning noise but didn’t answer, and John stared at him pensatively.

“You know we are still in time to call it off. I could find some other place to rise my daughter and we would still work together…”

Sherlock let a small silence pass before he answered

“No. Mrs. Hudson is actually happy with the idea of babysitting and I have already planned experiments regarding the developement of an infant’s psique for the next two years”

John stood silent as a response and Sherlock feared it would be a disaproving gesture.

“Do not fear, you know I would not put the child in danger it will be like a game for her”

John looked at him, and then arround, and cleared his throat, and opened his mout, and closed it, and then sighed

“What”  
“There is… something else, we need to discuss, before bringing her in”  
“Is it your sister? She wrestled me over the baby’s custody, she may have had plans to fix her problem in other to take her in in the future”  
“No, is not her”  
“Your mother? Does she disaprove of me living with you and the child?”  
“No”  
“Agent Jey… Joey… Geor… whatever Lestrade?”  
“No, its… see, is just, uh, I…”  
“The stairs? Thats an easy fix, we can have as many fences as…”

John shook his head, and deliveratly invaded Sherlock’s personal space, to hold his face firmly and kiss him fully on the lips. Well, kiss is a way to call it. It was not very romantic nor charming. It lacked the litlest bit of erotism and it was still and forcefull.

It was a fisic call of attention to announce his intentions more than an actual kiss.  
Later on, Sherlock and him would joke about it not being truly their first kiss for this and other reasons.

After, Sherlock was in a similar state of shock to the time John had asked him to be his best man. But with his mouth a bit open. John suspected it could all end up in another fight.

“…what”  
(sight) “you see, I ah” John wringled his hands and just kept it going the way he usually did: akward, but firm “I have… I… -I love you. There’s no other word for it, not anymore. I’ve been for a long time now. And while I was in…”  
Sherlock’s expression still didn’t change  
“…so traumatic, I had time enough to make some firm decisions, and one thing on my list was to make sure I told you about this. My feelings. For you. …And to learn the consecuences”  
Still no answer  
“That is, what you think about it, and if I should put some distance and leave with my daughter and maybe… keep working together in a… strictly proffesional way?”

This last bit of information finally seemed to produce a reaction on Sherlock. He blinked and shook a bit his head and then he asked

“wait, what would be the other option?”  
“well, I… wait. What you mean other option? You understand the situation? No more jokes, no misunderstandings?”  
“You have a romantic interest for me. You finaly confess it openly, what now?”  
“…finally. Wait. What you mean finally?”  
“I already knew”  
“What?”

Sherlock made that gesture with his head, like when he wondered why he was alone in a world of ignorants

“Really John. I didn’t need to deduce it after you made a move on me that first time at Angelo’s”  
“I did not”  
“Yes you did”  
“You misunderstood, I certainly didn’t”  
“You may not want to recognice it becouse you are used to the closet or you trully fooled yourself into not recognicing it but you did”  
“SHERLOCK”

Sherlock smiled. He had missed this.

“I don’t believe you. Even if I had made a move on you, wich I didn’t”  
Sherlock rised a brow  
“…I could have lost interest or you could be mistaken so how did you…?”  
“You really want to know?”

John crossed his arms and changed weight from one foot to the other, like he was holding back something and breathed deep. He did not answer.

“I have reasons to believe your father happened to be an old-fashioned, very exigent man, situation in wich influences your sister, who is not only alchoolic, but lesbian”  
“What does that have to…?”  
“There is cientific proof that genetics have big influence on sexual orientation…”  
“what”  
“The difficult and exigent situation within your family, specially in your jouth must have been quite the pressure, and it explains you being protective of your family and at the time resentfull, understanding and still shy and many, many facets of your personality and little gestures that show a typical…”  
“Don’t you dare”  
“…closet case. I am just shocked that you finally came out ot me. Thou I knew some kind of shock would be necessary in orther to break the cicle”  
“Shut up!”

Sherlock flinched just a little bit. John seemed very agitated.

“Why didn’t you… say something, then?”  
“…John I am not the most social person. I barely understand some… things. Things just happen and keep happening and I ignore them and just enjoy them. I…”  
“…”  
“…Why did you marry Mary?”

John’s face fell down. He suddenly wasn’t looking at his face.

“…You were gone”  
“I was back”  
“I already had plans”

Sherlock looked at him with a rock cold-sad expresion, and didn’t calculate the weight of his words.

“I didn’t expect you to do it. It shocked me”

John breathed deeply

“well. For that I’m not sorry. It was complicated, but I cared for her. And I wanted to form a family. And I got Rosie”

Sherlock took this in and then answered

“I am sorry, John. I should have accepted your advance on me that very first time at Angelo’s”

John tried (he really did) but he couldn’t hold back a little snicker as he replied

“I was not hitting on you”  
“Yes you were”  
“No, no I wasn’t. You’ll have to find something else to apologice for, starting for those two years of dead silence”  
“That was necesary”  
“SHERLOCK”  
“I don’t apologice that easilly”  
“Oh you…! Wait. One more thing”  
“hm?”  
“…Just to be clear, are you asexual?”

Sherlock made a face  
“John, really, I was sleeping with that girl… whatever-her-name was, where is your obserbation level!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some may argue agains't it but I am one of those exhausted and offended by the abuse of queer baiting.  
> As a character and story creator and all in all writer, I consider these two a "thing" If you'd like to call it so even if it is just in my headcanon.


End file.
